


Salvage

by thecookiemomma



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Psychological Torture, Torture, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:46:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecookiemomma/pseuds/thecookiemomma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief vignette of Tony's time in the caves. Dark. Explicit descriptions of torture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salvage

**Author's Note:**

> Read the warnings, please. Dark and definitely violent. I wrote this as a reminder to myself and others some of what Tony probably endured in the caves, and what he'd have to react to. Partially, this is a reference point for a few things for me, and partially, I've got a muse in my head wanting to tell the story. So, you benefit. Enjoy.

The dark crept up on him. Closed in on him. Little by little, Tony started to feel it, like a living presence in his face, clawing at his skin with its cold, black fingers, clawing at his eyes, tickling his skin like tentacles. The breath he could get was short, dry, painful. He couldn't seem to breathe. That shrapnel didn't just get his heart – oh, _god_ , his heart – but it also must have done something to his lungs, or to lung function. Maybe it was just that his heart couldn't beat enough for him to get enough blood pumping through everywhere.

 

They'd hooked him up to a car battery and left him in the clawing darkness for three days at a time, only allowing Yinsen near him to feed him something that tasted rancid and spicy, the spice hopefully killing the germs in whatever was rancid. Yinsen would feed him, touch his chest, check his wires, and then leave again when they yelled at him. Three whole days.

 

Then, when he didn't cave, they started in on water. Covered his chest to prevent him getting completely electrocuted, though they weren't thoroughly accurate about it, so sometimes, a drip or two would leak through, connect skin to wire, and send him reeling. It was as random as it was painful, and Tony wondered if that was completely intentional, or just a lucky side effect of the rest.

 

They'd take a towel, drape it over his face, and fill it full of water. He'd drown. Or feel like it. His mind felt like he was drowning. He'd go from unable to breathe at all to sucking in dry, dusty air so quickly his lungs would just ache. And midway through his deep breath, something would shift in his chest, and the wires would touch each other for just a split second, causing a feedback loop, and he'd scream in pain. Not from the lungs or the water, or the dry as fuck air, but from the goddammed electricity inside his chest, somehow connecting and burning him from the inside. It wasn't enough to really hurt him, and it wouldn't kill him, because it wasn't going to cross his heart... wasn't that just awesome...

 

There were days when he was resisting when he thought about just shifting just so, letting the current cross his heart and … hope to die... wasn't that how the rhyme went? When they did draw him out to encourage him to cooperate, one time, he saw Yinsen's face, and he saw the weariness that he'd seen on a million faces before. The soldier who knew the mission was probably fatal. The wife who'd been beaten so many times she didn't know whether she should believe the counselor who said she didn't deserve it. The child who hadn't had enough food and her eyes were as old as the oldest man's because she had seen so much in her few years. Something was changing. Maybe he wasn't going to last much longer. Maybe they were losing patience. Maybe there was a way to salvage...

 

That was it. Salvage. That was the key word. He glanced around the room, took stock of what they had, and looked up, gazing straight into the eyes of the leader.

 

“Yeah, I'll build you something.” Tony saw the relief flood his ally's eyes, and he laid back. “Let me get a little real rest, and I'll get cracking. It'll be awesome.” He grinned, the sharp, thin grin that he reserved for the people who thought they knew him best. It _would_ be awesome. It would completely blow them out of the water. Or … well, the sand at any rate. And he could get home.

 

 


End file.
